This eight-day backcountry touring course in the Sawatch Range of Colorado is designed to maximize time skiing or riding backcountry slopes, learning to safely travel in avalanche terrain and working as a highly functioning team.

Due to the challenging terrain, students must demonstrate solid intermediate skiing or snowboarding skills in order to take part in the expedition. You and your crew will examine the factors that contribute to avalanche hazards. You’ll also analyze snowpack stability, learn terrain analysis and examine group dynamics. Along the way, practice route finding strategies, make travel decisions in a group and train companion rescue techniques, including the use of avalanche beacons. This course is based on the American Avalanche Association's nationally recognized avalanche awareness curriculum.

UPCOMING COURSES

Call For Application

This course may be full or preparing to leave in the next week. Please call us at 866-467-7651 to discuss your options.

Classic Courses

Do you ever want to unplug, step away from the daily grind to take on new challenges? Are you ready to conquer harder skills and remind your senses (or discover for the first time) what it’s like to crest a mountain peak, hear the echoes at the edge of a vast canyon or feel the rush of white water spray on your face? Take a break from your routine, radically change your surroundings and test your tenacity. Put some “firsts” in front of you and find moments of unexpected discovery along the way. Experience Outward Bound as an adult and prepare for an injection of adventure, awareness and adaptability that sticks with you long after you unpack your backpack.

Build skills, form connections: Meet like-minded peers and make connections as you work through priorities and adventures together, learn outdoor skills at the hands of expert Instructors, and earn every good night’s sleep.

Value strengths and strengthen values: Re-discover your inner strength, renew your natural leadership abilities and practice adapting to new environments. Tap in to your trust and compassion as you tackle obstacles with a support crew standing beside you.

Demonstrate mastery: As you awaken your wilderness skills and dig deep to rise to the physical and mental challenges, the bulk of the expedition’s leadership and decision-making responsibilities transfer from the Instructor to the crew. Work together to achieve team goals, solve problems and succeed both individually and together.

What you’ll learn: Watch, try and share more difficult outdoor skills that you’ll master on your expedition. Discover and then remind yourself that there’s more in you than you know. Having taken the risks, learned from and adapted to all sorts of new situations and environments, you’re ready for whatever life hands you going forward.

Return home with newly expanded wilderness acumen, an energized outlook, a rekindled allowance of empathy into situations and relationships and an eye toward the future.

Photo courtesy
of Izzy Lazarus

Photo courtesy
of Izzy Lazarus

Photo courtesy
of Izzy Lazarus

Photo courtesy
of Peter O'Neil

Photo courtesy
of Peter O'Neil

Photo courtesy
of Peter O'Neil

Photo courtesy
of Hannah Trim

Photo courtesy
of Chandler Thomson

Photo courtesy
of Austin Gibney

Photo courtesy
of Hannah Trim

Backcountry Skiing & Snowboarding

This is a backcountry winter expedition in the Sawatch Range with opportunities to ski and ride the out-of-area slopes and learn winter expedition skills. The first few days of the course are based at Outward Bound’s Leadville Mountain Center to help students ease into the winter environment. The first full day is spent riding and skiing at a nearby resort, where Instructors assess abilities and help students improve techniques. In these first few days, students also learn how to safely travel in the winter backcountry.

The high point of the course is a challenging backcountry expedition during which students camp out and travel in pristine alpine terrain. Students skin up mountain slopes, ride untracked snow, possibly build a snow shelter and learn to assess and adapt to varying snow and weather conditions.

Service

Service to others and the environment is a core value of Outward Bound and is integrated into each course. Participants follow Leave No Trace ethics as service to the environment and do acts of service while leading and supporting fellow participants. Designated service projects are coordinated with land managers like the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service to collaborate on land restoration projects. Some projects are more social services based, and participants may visit a nursing home or hospital to provide service there. Students develop a value of service, seeing the impact of their actions firsthand and transfer this desire to serve their communities back home.

Solo

In order for profound learning to take place, there must be time to reflect on the experience. Solo is that opportunity, and that time can range anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours or more, depending on the length of the course. Weather and time permitting, the Solo experience provides an important break from the rigors of the expedition and gives students the opportunity to reflect on their Outward Bound experience. Many students use this reflection time to make decisions about their future, journal and enjoy the beauty of their surroundings unencumbered by the constant external stimulation of modern life. The duration of Solo depends on the course length and type, as well as the competency and preparedness of the student group. With all the food, skills and supplies they need, participants are given a secluded spot to reflect alone and are monitored by staff throughout the experience to maintain safety. Students find that Solo provokes profound and powerful learning in a short period of time and often becomes one of the most memorable parts of their Outward Bound experience.

Outcomes

Whether you go on an 8-day course or an 80 day course, all Outward Bound expeditions are focused on building character and leadership skills. Short courses are a great option for students looking for an introduction to the outdoors or for those who need a quick recharge. On shorter courses, you’ll learn camping and expedition basics, as well as the skills specific to your course activity such as climbing or rafting. You’ll get to know your fellow crew mates surprisingly well as you share this immersive and intense experience.

On longer courses, your Instructors will progressively hand over more of the decision making and leadership of the expedition to you and your crewmates, allowing each person to test the new technical and interpersonal skills they have learned. On semesters, you will learn advanced technical skills and on some courses, earn certifications. Longer courses give your crew the opportunity to get past the “honeymoon” stage where individuals show more of their “real” selves. Through the dynamics of an evolving group setting, you will have more freedom to investigate who you are and how you want to develop personally, and to start that inner journey. Longer solos will give you more time to reflect on your course and your life direction. All along the way, you will experience a wide variety of some of the most beautiful wilderness in the US and the world.

Course Area

Sawatch Mountain Range, Colorado Rockies

The Sawatch Range is a large, high section of the Rocky Mountains in central Colorado. This range forms a portion of the Continental Divide and contains 15 peaks with elevations higher than 14,000 feet including Mount Elbert, which is the highest peak in the Rockies at 14,440 feet. Sawatch comes from a Ute word meaning sand dune as some of the peaks have a sandy color after the spring snows melt. These peaks are high enough that snow typically lasts into late July and some years may last year-round.

Getting Started

If you are ready to enroll on a course click the enroll button next to the course you wish to select or you can enroll over the phone by speaking with one of our Admissions Advisors (toll-free) at 866-467-7651.

To secure your spot on a course you must submit an enrollment form and $500 deposit that is applied toward the total cost of the course and includes a $150 non-refundable enrollment processing fee.